Abyss

I needed to write some test text at work.

This is merely a test. Ignore this. Stop reading it immediately; there is nothing more of value beyond this point. No, seriously. Stop now, lest something horrendous happen to you. Gaze not too long into the abyss, lest the abyss gaze back, and maybe the abyss starts to talk to you, on the bus, maybe, and it starts telling you about its miserable childhood, its string collection, the last time it was allowed to ride the bus by itself and just how badly it turned out, what with the gazing and all, and meanwhile you’re sitting there nodding politely (which was your first mistake – once you begin nodding, you can’t then drop back to not acknowledging the abyss, you’ve got to keep on doing something, like a fishhook working its way ever farther into your jaw) and counting the stops until you could conceivably get off the bus and walk the rest of the way home and still not have the distance measured in, say, tens of miles, though you’re fairly seriously considering it despite the blatting rain and the tissue-thin briefcase you’re carrying papers home in, and the abyss keeps on gazing at you while rambling on about how few friends it has and the conditions at the empty lot where it lives, the paucity of firewood available to burn in the oildrum on the corner and the difficulty in lighting it in weather like this anyhow, its musings on whether given the current climate vis a vis welfare reform the government might just consider bringing back smallpox blankets, solving a lot of problems all at once: theirs, yours, and the abyss’ all in one fell flannel swoop, but no, history would prevent that, certainly it would, and your surety in this fact is enough to let you stand up, give a slightly firmer nod good-bye, tug on the pull-cord for the distant ding at the front of the bus, like someone dropped a more-resonant-than-most fork into a metal bowl in someone’s lap, and then the welcome hissing of the bus’ airbrakes, the abyss winding down, gazing at its feet and starting to mumble lower and lower, it’s lost its way and can’t seem to find it again, and just as the back doors swing open, you stop for a second, put your hand on the abyss’ shoulder, look at it squarely, and say, deliberately, “Take Care.”

And then you’re home.